American Literature

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American Literature

• Lecture 2

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Objectives

• Enable the Ss to know the background,
  representative writers and their works of the
  Enlightenment period in American literary
  history
• Enable the Ss to know the thirteen moral virtues
  in Benjamin Franklins Autobiography
• Enable the Ss to learn to appreciate Philip
  Freneaus The Wild Honey Suckle

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Teaching Material

• Benjamin Franklin
• Autobiography
• Philip Freneau
• The Wild Honey Suckle

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Teaching Methodology

• Lecturing
• Poems appreciation and analysis

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Chapter Two

• Enlightenment and Revolutionary Period
  (1750-1810)

The Age of Reason American Enlightenment
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• In the 18th century, people believed in mans own
  nature and the power of human reason. With
  Franklin as its spokesman, the 18th century
  America experienced an age of reason.
• Words had never been so useful and so important
  in human history. People wrote a lot of political
  writings. Numerous pamphlets and printings were
  published. These works agitated revolutionary
  people not only in America but also around the
  world.

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• The 18th-century American Enlightenment was a
  movement marked by an emphasis on rationality
  rather than tradition, scientific inquiry instead
  of unquestioning religious dogma, and
  representative government in place of monarchy.
• Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted
  to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality
  as the natural rights of man.
• The colonists who would form a new nation were
  firm believers in the power of reason they were
  ambitious, inquisitive, optimistic, practical,
  politically astute, and self-reliant.

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Leading writers and their works

• Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)
• -The Great Doctrine of Original Sin
  defended(1758)
• Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826)
• -The Declaration of Independence (1776)
• Thomas Paine(1737-1809)
• -Common Sense (1776)

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• Benjamin Franklin
• Autobiography
• Philip Freneau
• The Wild Honey Suckle

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Jonathan Edwards

• Born into a very religious New England family,
  educated in Yale
• The first modern American and the countrys last
  medieval man
• He represents the element of piety, the religious
  passion, the aspect of emotion and ecstacy, of
  New England tradition
• Edwards was a great deal of a transcendentalist

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Thomas Paine

• -to fight for the rights of man
• -to help spur and inspire two greatest
  revolution
• -He became a major influence in the American
  Revolution
• -Common Sense, American Crisis, The Rights of
  Man, The Age of Reason

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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
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• He was the symbol of America in the Age of
  Enlightenment (Age of Reason).
• He brought the colonial era to a close.

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1. Works
????

• The Autobiography
• Poor Richards Almanac

2. Life

• Benjamin Franklin came from a Calvinist
  background.
• He was born into a poor candle-makers family. He
  had very little education. He learned in school
  only for two years, but he was a voracious
  reader.
• At 12, he was apprenticed to his elder
  half-brother, a printer.
• At 16, he began to publish essays under the
  pseudonym Silence Do good .
• At 17, he ran away to Philadelphia to make his
  own fortune.
• He set himself up as an independent printer and
  publisher. In 1727 he founded the Junto club.

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• Franklins Contributions to Society

• He helped found the Pennsylvania Hospital.
• He founded an academy which led to the University
  of Pennsylvania.
• And he helped found the American Philosophical
  Society.

• Franklins Contributions to Science

• He was also remembered for volunteer fire
  departments, effective street lighting, the
  Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and efficient
  heating devices.
• And for his lightning-rod, he was called the new
  Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven.

• Franklins Contributions to the U.S.

• He was the only American to sign the four
  documents that created the United States
• The Declaration of Independence,
• The Treaty of Alliance with France,
• The Treaty of Peace with England,
• The Constitution

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3. Evaluation

• The Autobiography is a record of self-examination
  and self-improvement.
• Benjamin Franklin was a spokesman for the new
  order of the 18th century enlightenment
• The Autobiography is a how-to-do-it book, a book
  on the art of self-improvement. (for example,
  Franklins 13 virtues)
• Through telling a success story of self-reliance,
  the book celebrates, in fact, the fulfillment of
  the American dream.
• The Autobiography is in the pattern of Puritan
  simplicity, directness, and concision.

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Questions Answering

• 1. What are the thirteen names of moral virtues
  that Franklin enumerated? (P 282)

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2. Philip Freneau (1752-1832)

• Poet of the American Revolution
• Father of American Poetry
• Pioneer of the New Romanticism
• A gifted and versatile lyric poet

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???????
1. Works

• The Rising Glory of America (1772)
• The House of Night (1779, 1786)
• The British Prison Ship (1781)
• To the Memory of the Brave Americans (1781)
• The Wild Honey Suckle (1786)
• The Indian Burying Ground (1788)
• The Dying Indian Tomo Chequi

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

• Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
• Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
• Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
• Unseen thy little branches greet
• No roving foot shall crush thee here,
• No busy hand provoke a tear

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

• By Nature's self in white arrayed,
• She bade thee shun the vulger eye,
• And planted here the guardian shade,
• And sent soft waters murmuring by
• Thus quietly thy summer goes,
• Thy days declining to repose.

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

• Smit with those chams,t hat must decay,
•  I grieve to see your future doom
•  They died--nor were those flowers more gay,
•  The flowers that did in Eden bloom
•  Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
•  Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

• From morning suns and evening dews
• At first thy little being came
• If nothing once,you nothing lose,
• For when you die you are the same
• The space between,is but an hour,
•  The frail duration of flower.

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

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Philip Freneau The Wild Honey Suckle????

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Assignment

• 1. Read Ralph Waldo Emersons American Scholar
  and be ready to answer the questions afterwards.